Hello followers
I would like to report to this blog a personal experience of an e-transaction with Fly Emirates Airline.
I made an on line booking with this airline in 11 November using my credit card for making due payment. In 17 November I discovered that the Airline had made an unauthorized overdraft within the main transaction for an amount that is equivalent to that of the basic transaction. The incident was discovered while I was trying to pay for my weekly shopping leaving me out of money, in a critical situation and unable to get essentials for my family including some medications. As I told by the Bank, the attempts to get the money occurred in two phases because the first attempt did not achieve the amount targeted by the Airline which in my opinion involves some kind of human intention and intervention. I contacted the Airline, who did not make an initiative to inform me about the incident and did not express any kind of regret and as I understand this usually happen in their e-transactions and attributed it to system error where such amounts are taken for a period of time that reaches 15 days before releasing it.
Summary points could be as follows:
- They airline used my card details to make another unauthorized and unjustified draft from my balance even with the intention to refund it in the future.
- The airline breached their declared rules mentioning that my payment information is encrypted and my transaction is safe.
- The bank allowed the Airline to exceed the agreed upon limit of the card leaving the balance in negative.
- Neither the Airlines nor the bank informed me about the incident which is not communicated via SMS.
- The nature of the act is absolutely not acceptable in the reality transactions, as stated in Prof Ian book of Information Technology, to be accepted in computer transactions. In reality no body can force another to give his own money telling that it will be refunded in the future and if the transaction took place in the airline office the situation would be completely different.
- What kind of regulations can be developed to criminalize such acts which are designed to obtain considerable amounts of money from considerable number of people probably for generating money before refunding it.
- what kind of remedy would be available for customer especially with regard to moral damages incurred as a consequent of such an action.
- Is the credit card issuer (Visa) is responsible jointly with the Airline.
- What kind of measures that could be adopted to raise people awareness in such a field and enable them to distinguish between legal and illegal practice in e-commerce.
The incident was a good chance that made me think deeply about many aspects of e-transactions.
(Reposted from the student blog)
ReplyDeleteWhat an interesting, and unfortunate, experience.
My thoughts stem primarily on whether this is a system problem - a bug - or whether it is an intended behaviour, designed to acquire money to which they are not entitled (or at least the interest on the money).
What kind of regulations can be developed to criminalize such acts which are designed to obtain considerable amounts of money from considerable number of people propably for generating money before refunding it.
This is a critical point of me - are you suggesting the criminalisation of software bugs and computer glitches, or only where there is some kind of criminal intent to fraudulently obtain money? The latter seems perfectly sensible to me - and may well be within the laws of some countries already - but the former would concern me. I can understand that consumers must have some form of remedy, and there must be a sufficient incentive to do what they can to avoid this sort of issue, but a criminal offence for incompetence may punish more than can be foreseen.
what kind of remedy would be avialable for customer especially with regard to moral damages incurred as a consequent of such an action.
My gut reaction is that we do not need to come up with something knew here - local laws may well already cover what damages are recoverable in what situations, and, in particular, the suitability of damages for embarrassment / upset. These issues are not specific to the situation here - I'd see a much wider debate as to whether embarassment should be remunerated as a form of damage, for example?
Is the credit card issuer (Visa) is responsible jointly with the Airline.
If the question is "is", I would have thought that this would be a matter for local law - perhaps of equal concern is whether going to the credit card company would get anything done faster?
What kind of measures that could be adopted to raise people awareness in such a field and enable them to distinguish between legal and illegal practice in e-commerce.
Various thoughts from me - a strong consumer protection law, a visible and active regulator, strong cross-jurisdiction interaction at governmental and operational level, and perhaps an investigation (again) into the usefulness of trust marks and seals, although someone intent on a criminal practice is probably not too concerned by the laws of trade marks either.
I think we need to be clear between an accidental and undesirable practice and one which is criminal - solving these may demand, or be best addressed by, different approaches.
A very interesting post. First of all my sympathies and I hope you are on the way to resolving the issue.
ReplyDeleteI've flown a few times with Emirates and they do seem to be trying (and succeeding) in making Dubai a global hub. I will not review my travel experiences but they were not uniformly good.
My feeling is that airlines like Emirates can flourish because of IT but it does raise the major issue of choice of law. A customer in Scotland can easily make a booking but if something goes wrong, what are the legal rights. We have section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act which effectively says that if something goes wrong, it is Visa or Mastercard's problem, not the consumers. This, of course, is a UK statute and maybe one of the points is that we need more in the way of international standards.
There can be issues about whose fault mistakes are. I have to hold my hand up and admit that I have made inaccurate bookings. Sometimes sites are not well designed. There is one airline site in the UK which lets you go through the stages of a booking and may then indicate that one piece of information is missing or inaccurate. You can correct it but what the site does not say is that it has reset your departure date for the next day. Not good if you are booking for the next week.
I now know this site and am careful to check. I have seen other sites - and this may be the case here - where the connection seems to hang but pressing submit again creates a duplicate booking.
I doubt whether there is a neat legal answer - at least one which is reasonably cost effective. I'm told that Emirates consumer relations staff are not very friendly. As a practiced consumer complainer, my advice is to seek a remedy that will not involve the airline in direct costs. A free flight perhaps.
Finishing with the law, I think we do need more in the way legal standards for web site design and functionality. We can all make mistakes but the European E-Commerce has an (impossibly vague) provision requiring the opportunity to correct mistake. My suggestion is that there should be a requirement on the part of the supplier to send a notice (email) confirming what it things has been bought and for the consumer to have a period - perhaps a very short period - to notify any mistakes.
Hope you do get a resolution to the issue.
Thank you Prof. for your comment. Up to now, everything is as it was. The bank is alleging that the disputed amount is outstanding as a guarantee for the airline and to be refunded after 15 days while the airline denying any further operation than the original agreed upon one.
DeleteI think that if people is accustomed to some form of practice, they will consider it as legitimate even it isn't.
Nothing mentioned in the local law of electronic transactions determining whose problem in this or regulating dealing with website located abroad.
Your suggestion of providing an opportunity to correct mistakes that may occur seems to be reasonable and let me add another suggestion of establishing a national committee with the function of receiving and analyzing complaints relating to electronic transactions and that have the competence of making relevant recommendations to the concerned body such as the parliament or the legislative body as the system may require.
I think it is time to shift my concern to my upcoming submissions
Thanks again
Deleteestablishing a national committee with the function of receiving and analyzing complaints relating to electronic transactions
Is there an existing body which could serve this purpose? A financial services regulator or a consumer protection agency, perhaps?
I just wonder whether a separate body would be a good use of public funds for such a narrow issue?
If you look at the EU, there is a lot of talk about trans national dispute resolution procedures but very little actual activity.
DeleteI suspect a major need is for people to get more information about their rights. I can give a personal example. My mother in law recently bought (paying by debit card) a dish washer from a UK retailer, Comet. UK students will doubtless be aware that Comet have gone into administration. And, yes, my mother in law got the message that she would not get her dish washer.
My initial reaction was along the lines "aaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrgggghhh". If you pay for goods with a credit card in the UK you can take action against the credit card company for any breaches (including failure to deliver) by the supplier. I had always thought that protection was limited to credit cards and that debit cards offered no protection. I did some research, and found that the banks now operate an extra legal scheme called Chargeback which gives a similar level of protection.
A happy ending for my mother in law, but a concern is that I am, I hope, a not totally unintelligent consumer yet I did not know of the existence of the scheme. Maybe other UK based students can tell me that I was stupid!
I think my point is that almost before we set up new institutions there may be need for more consumer information.
banks now operate an extra legal scheme called Chargeback
ReplyDeleteWow — nice find — that's news to me.